If you don't know who I mean by New Atheists, if you read this post all the way through, you will.
Hundreds of years ago, some of the people who didn't believe that God or any gods existed were afraid to call themselves atheists, and so they called themselves skeptics instead. Sadly, it's happening again.
Today, there are atheists who are choosing not to publicly refer to themselves as atheists, because they're afraid that if they do, people will assume that they agree with Richard Dawkins when he compares Trinity College in Cambridge to "the Muslim world" and tacitly assumes that Nobel Prizes are an objective measure of a culture's achievements; or with the late Christopher Hitchens' assertion, important enough to him that he made it a subtitle of one of his books, that "religion poisons everything;" or with Sam Harris when he says -- just about anything; or admire PZ Myers for covering a copy of Koran with garbage and feces. Or maybe they're afraid that people will assume that they share the Islamophobia or the large gaps in the education in history of all four of the above... They choose not to call themselves atheists, to behave as if the word does not mean what it meant when the big atheist superstars were Russell and Sartre instead of Dawkins and Harris, because they're afraid.
And so they're hiding behind less clear labels like "skeptic" or "non-believer" or, if they're even a little bit more cowardly than that, they just keep going to church, and claim on Facebook they if they come out of the atheist closet they'll be lynched. In the last instance I'm not talking about atheists living in countries where atheists actually have been killed, sometimes by the authorities. I'm talking about the cowardly atheists in the US who claim that if they publicly acknowledge that they're atheists, they will be risking their lives.
But back to the "skeptics" and "non-believers" : the thing is that "atheist" does -- for the time being, anyway -- still mean what it meant back when Bertie and Jean-Paul were kicking ass and taking names and winning Nobel Prizes in Literature (Ai kan also haz??) "Atheist" still refers, for the vast majority of the population, to anyone and everyone who thinks that God and gods and miracles and resurrections and so forth are all make-believe.
But even beyond that -- what has ever been the point of anyone calling him- or herself an atheist? Outside of the Communist bloc, it hasn't ever been done in order to increase one's chances of winning political office. It's been done for the sake of honesty. For the sake of clarity. For the sake of good sense. (I've stopped using the phrase "common sense," because as time goes on it becomes more and more clear to me how uncommon good sense is.)
And so, in order to be as clear and precise as possible, if you're an atheist who realizes that a phenomenon that has included billions of people over tens of thousands of years is far, far too complex to be referred to as all bad, an atheist who's noticed both all of the Muslims being killed by majority-Christian nations and all the Muslims fighting ISIS and fighting extremism in general and just can't go along with the fearmongering Islamophobic bullshit of Dawkins and Harris and Hitch, an atheist who finds it disgusting and counter-productive when someone literally craps on books, or who knows several things wrong about describing authors of the Bible as "Bronze-Age goat herders" -- if you're all or any of those kinds of an atheist, the thing to do is to say so. And not to surrender the label "atheist" to the fans of Dawkins, Hitch, Harris, Myers, Dennett, Coyne & Co.
It occurs to me that the situation may already have grown so ridiculously confused that not only some atheists, but also many religious people may agree with Hitchens' slogan "religion poisons everything." without agreeing with Hitchens or me or any other atheists (or skeptics or non-believers, po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to) in any particulars whatsoever. I'm talking about the so-called "spiritual but not religious." Like the "skeptics" and "non-believers" who are actually atheists but prefer to be obscure, to hide from the danger of association with the barbarian New Atheist hordes, the "spiritual but not religious" have differences with people who share certain metaphysical beliefs with them (the set of beliefs known as "religion"), and instead of directly confronting those specific differences, whether they have to do with hierarchy in religious organizations, or corruption in religious hierarchies, or with politics -- instead of dealing with those specific issues, the "spiritual but not religious" have preferred to pretend that the term "religious" suddenly does not mean what it means. There are a lot of Buddhists who suddenly are pretending that Buddhism is not a religion and never was, and that Buddhism who think or thought it is or was a religion are or were doin' it wrong.
I think that we atheists should leave this sort of semantic nonsense to religious people, along with their metaphysical nonsense. If you don't believe God exists and you do believe Dawkins has become a huge jackass since he stopped studying biology a decade ago, or you have differences with Harris or Hitch or Myers -- or with Russell or Sartre or Nietzsche or Twain, or with me, or with anyone else who identifies as an atheist -- I think you should call yourself an atheist and talk directly and clearly about your specific differences with those other atheists.
Why? Because if you correctly identify yourself as an atheist, there's a greater chance that others will understand what you're talking about. Abandoning the term will only lead to confusion -- it has only led to confusion. Simple and plain as that. And again, what ever has been the point of any of us (outside of the Communist bloc) opposing religion and exposing ourselves to so much aggravation, if it has not been for the sake of greater understanding and greater clarity, and for the sake making more sense and speaking more plainly than those others in their churches and temples and mosques, and for the sake of striving to be better than those who know better but would thrive on the confusion of others?
Showing posts with label movement atheism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movement atheism. Show all posts
Friday, May 29, 2015
Sunday, May 3, 2015
I Was So Excited When I First Heard There Was Something Called "New Atheism"
I was so excited, just a few years ago, when I found out that there were people called New Atheists, and started finding online atheist communities. Now, several years later, having read the same several dozen slogans 473,786,365,897,7563,8672,188 times in those online communities, having repeatedly been accused of secretly being a Christian or Muslim and been banned from atheist groups for not agreeing
1) that the Bible was written by Bronze Age goat herders or
2) that Constantine and the Pope re-wrote the Bible or
3) that it's 100% certain that the story of Noah was "stolen" from that of Gilgamesh or
4) that Judaism was "stolen" from Zoroastrianism or
5) that it's certain that Jesus never existed (or
6) for even caring whether there was a non-supernatural Jesus) or
7) that there were newspapers in ancient Jerusalem,
to name only of a few of the more spectacularly stupid mistakes which routinely pass as wisdom in many such communities; and after, several times, having finally, with great effort and tenacity, actually convinced someone that one of 1) through 7) or many more up to 30) or so, was a mistake, was ahistorical, getting the response: "So what?" and having people tell me they were going to go with the mistake anyway because that's what others in the group were doing --
-- after all of that, my enthusiasm has cooled somewhat.
Of course, not everyone in those communities clings tenaciously to all of these historical errors. And of course, not all of them are clearly errors. Some, like Jesus' non-existence and the story of Noah having come directly from that of Gilgamesh, are just premature conclusions. Those assumptions could be correct. But they could be incorrect, too, and we'd be learning much more quickly and effectively, as atheist groups, if we didn't rush to embrace every assumption as fact which would allow us, if true, to score points against believers. It could also be correct, for example, as is routinely assumed in atheist communities, that there never was a Moses or an Exodus from Egypt to Canaan in the 13th century BC. If there was one it was much smaller than the 600,000 families which the Bible says wandered for 40 years. But try to get a discussion of small-Exodus theories going in atheist communities. Go ahead, try it.
There are just so damn few of us in these groups who, when considering historical topics like these, are actually more interested in knowing what really happened than in framing a narrative which is as unflattering to religion, primarily unflattering to the Abrahamic religions, as possible. Precious little serious historical discussion going on here. It no longer surprises me that historians tend to take such a negative view of movement atheism.
It no longer surprises me that so many movement atheists assume that academic historians, in and out of the fields of Biblical Studies and "the relevant fields," are either believers, or corrupted by the money and power of believers. It still greatly disappoints me, but it doesn't surprise me any more.
I still have exactly the same major problem with the academic mainstream which I had before I ever heard of New Atheists. (I had heard of Richard Dawkins before this, and read 2 of his books on biology, and I thought they were great, and I still do, and just like many historians I wish he would go back to biology, back to something he's good at.) That problem is their refusal, with very very few exceptions, to even consider the possibility that Jesus might have been a mythical character right from the start, and never an historical figure. But compared to all the problems I have with the movement atheists, it's not an overwhelming problem. It's a significant problem, but there's just one of them.
Apparently, one of the very very few mainstream academics who aren't convinced that Jesus existed, Thomas L Thompson, who was a professor of theology at the University of Copenhagen from 1993–2009, who because of his doubts is naturally very popular among the non-academic mythicists, was until very recently unaware that those mythicists existed, because he only read primary materials and peer-reviewed academic material. Last I heard he had no intention to start reading the non-academic mythicists. Ah, what blissful ignorance that must be.
1) that the Bible was written by Bronze Age goat herders or
2) that Constantine and the Pope re-wrote the Bible or
3) that it's 100% certain that the story of Noah was "stolen" from that of Gilgamesh or
4) that Judaism was "stolen" from Zoroastrianism or
5) that it's certain that Jesus never existed (or
6) for even caring whether there was a non-supernatural Jesus) or
7) that there were newspapers in ancient Jerusalem,
to name only of a few of the more spectacularly stupid mistakes which routinely pass as wisdom in many such communities; and after, several times, having finally, with great effort and tenacity, actually convinced someone that one of 1) through 7) or many more up to 30) or so, was a mistake, was ahistorical, getting the response: "So what?" and having people tell me they were going to go with the mistake anyway because that's what others in the group were doing --
-- after all of that, my enthusiasm has cooled somewhat.
Of course, not everyone in those communities clings tenaciously to all of these historical errors. And of course, not all of them are clearly errors. Some, like Jesus' non-existence and the story of Noah having come directly from that of Gilgamesh, are just premature conclusions. Those assumptions could be correct. But they could be incorrect, too, and we'd be learning much more quickly and effectively, as atheist groups, if we didn't rush to embrace every assumption as fact which would allow us, if true, to score points against believers. It could also be correct, for example, as is routinely assumed in atheist communities, that there never was a Moses or an Exodus from Egypt to Canaan in the 13th century BC. If there was one it was much smaller than the 600,000 families which the Bible says wandered for 40 years. But try to get a discussion of small-Exodus theories going in atheist communities. Go ahead, try it.
There are just so damn few of us in these groups who, when considering historical topics like these, are actually more interested in knowing what really happened than in framing a narrative which is as unflattering to religion, primarily unflattering to the Abrahamic religions, as possible. Precious little serious historical discussion going on here. It no longer surprises me that historians tend to take such a negative view of movement atheism.
It no longer surprises me that so many movement atheists assume that academic historians, in and out of the fields of Biblical Studies and "the relevant fields," are either believers, or corrupted by the money and power of believers. It still greatly disappoints me, but it doesn't surprise me any more.
I still have exactly the same major problem with the academic mainstream which I had before I ever heard of New Atheists. (I had heard of Richard Dawkins before this, and read 2 of his books on biology, and I thought they were great, and I still do, and just like many historians I wish he would go back to biology, back to something he's good at.) That problem is their refusal, with very very few exceptions, to even consider the possibility that Jesus might have been a mythical character right from the start, and never an historical figure. But compared to all the problems I have with the movement atheists, it's not an overwhelming problem. It's a significant problem, but there's just one of them.
Apparently, one of the very very few mainstream academics who aren't convinced that Jesus existed, Thomas L Thompson, who was a professor of theology at the University of Copenhagen from 1993–2009, who because of his doubts is naturally very popular among the non-academic mythicists, was until very recently unaware that those mythicists existed, because he only read primary materials and peer-reviewed academic material. Last I heard he had no intention to start reading the non-academic mythicists. Ah, what blissful ignorance that must be.
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Atheist Shows Painting Of Adam & Eve, Circles their Bellybuttons, Sez "This Proves The Bible Is Wrong"
1) Has this atheist never met any Jews, Christians or Muslims who don't believe the Genesis story of the Garden of Eden is literally true, but are still Jews, Christians or Muslims? Really? Really? All of the atheists I've been hanging out with -- have they all recently barely escaped with their lives from believers who were about to slay them because they touched pigskin with their bare hands or ate shrimp? That would explain a few things.
2) If they really are talking to people who believe that the Genesis story of the Garden of Eden is true -- What's to keep those believers from answering, "This painting was made in the 15th century. Why would you expect a painting made then to realistically reproduce every detail of the bodies of people the painter never saw, who lived thousands of years earlier? They've got these buildings full of paintings and sculptures, they're called 'museums,' you should check one out sometime. Paintings and sculptures from all eras, when they depict people and things from earlier eras, are full of historical inaccuracies. There's even a name for such inaccuracies, they're called 'anachronisms.' Painters in the 15th century didn't have access to nearly as much information about the ancient world as we have today, so it's only natural that if they painted someone from ancient history or mythology -- and they made such paintings all the time -- the paintings would contain anachronisms which would be much more obvious to someone in the 21st century than someone in the 15th century. And why should we assume in the first place that all such anachronisms are committed by mistake -- well, we certainly shouldn't! Not only do painters of all eras make unintentional anachronisms -- painters in all eras have made intentional ones too! If the people in the pictures look like people from the viewers' own time and place, it makes it easier for the viewers to relate to them as real human beings. That's Painting Psychology 101, or 201 at most. Movies are chock full of anachronisms too, everybody knows that. Stirrups weren't invented until after the fall of the Roman Empire, but in movie after movie you see ancient Greeks and Romans climbing up onto their horses with the aid of stirrups. You know, I don't know if I've ever heard anyone say that a 15th century painter was a bad painter because there are anachronisms in his pictures. If anybody ever did say such a thing I'd have to disagree, I'd have to say they were missing the whole point of painting! How many times have you heard someone complain because people in a movie who were supposed to be ancient Romans were speaking English and not Latin? And I KNOW I've never heard anybody before this point out an anachronism in a 15th-century painting and say, 'This proves the Bible is wrong.' So thank you, Sir, for a completely new experience and a good laugh!"
2) If they really are talking to people who believe that the Genesis story of the Garden of Eden is true -- What's to keep those believers from answering, "This painting was made in the 15th century. Why would you expect a painting made then to realistically reproduce every detail of the bodies of people the painter never saw, who lived thousands of years earlier? They've got these buildings full of paintings and sculptures, they're called 'museums,' you should check one out sometime. Paintings and sculptures from all eras, when they depict people and things from earlier eras, are full of historical inaccuracies. There's even a name for such inaccuracies, they're called 'anachronisms.' Painters in the 15th century didn't have access to nearly as much information about the ancient world as we have today, so it's only natural that if they painted someone from ancient history or mythology -- and they made such paintings all the time -- the paintings would contain anachronisms which would be much more obvious to someone in the 21st century than someone in the 15th century. And why should we assume in the first place that all such anachronisms are committed by mistake -- well, we certainly shouldn't! Not only do painters of all eras make unintentional anachronisms -- painters in all eras have made intentional ones too! If the people in the pictures look like people from the viewers' own time and place, it makes it easier for the viewers to relate to them as real human beings. That's Painting Psychology 101, or 201 at most. Movies are chock full of anachronisms too, everybody knows that. Stirrups weren't invented until after the fall of the Roman Empire, but in movie after movie you see ancient Greeks and Romans climbing up onto their horses with the aid of stirrups. You know, I don't know if I've ever heard anyone say that a 15th century painter was a bad painter because there are anachronisms in his pictures. If anybody ever did say such a thing I'd have to disagree, I'd have to say they were missing the whole point of painting! How many times have you heard someone complain because people in a movie who were supposed to be ancient Romans were speaking English and not Latin? And I KNOW I've never heard anybody before this point out an anachronism in a 15th-century painting and say, 'This proves the Bible is wrong.' So thank you, Sir, for a completely new experience and a good laugh!"
Saturday, April 11, 2015
Atheisting Properly
It's true, as the popular atheist meme (*ahem*) says, that being an atheist means only that you don't believe in God, and nothing else. But it's obvious that very many atheists don't really believe that. Otherwise, the very popular sarcastic expression "yr atheistin wrong" wouldn't exist. If a lot of atheists didn't have a lot of other rules for atheistin, that popular sarcastic phrase wouldn't be funny. It wouldn't mean anything at all.
I can't tell you how many times some atheist or another has immediately assumed that I believed God exists as soon as I disagreed with him or her when he or she said that ending religion would end all of humanity's problems, or that Constantine and the Pope wrote the Bible at Nicea in AD 400, or that being an atheist means one is more intelligent than a believer, or that we are all born atheists, or that religion was invented in order to control the masses (In point of fact, there were no masses when religion began: there were no towns or cities, and humans didn't live in herds, but in small bands.), or that religion poisons everything, or -- if you've hung out in atheist groups for a while, you can add to the list yourself. Yes, being an atheist means not believing in God, it means only that, but that doesn't stop some atheists from adding a whole lot of other rules. A whole lot of other things in which you'd better believe. Or else.
It may often seem as if I argue with other atheists just because I am cantankerous, because something's wrong with me -- and no doubt, there's something to that. Don't worry, I'm in therapy, I'm working on me. But there's more involved here, when I or some other atheist keeps saying to groups of atheists: No, I don't agree. (Not always 100% as politely as that. I'm working on it.) We're also speaking up for others who may be more timid. Clearly, for some people, becoming atheists did not mean ceasing to live by a long list of rules, maxims and Truths which for them are not up for discussion. Others of us, however, cast aside the revealed truths of religion, and DON'T want to replace that religious dogma with atheist dogma. We stopped letting clergypeople and holy books tell us what to believe, and we DON'T want atheist leaders and books by Dawkins, Harris, etc, to tell us what's what. We actually want to think for ourselves. (It's not for everybody. Clearly, it's not for all atheists, not by a million miles.)
And wouldn't it be a shame if some timid atheist was scared away from a group, or stayed in a group but was afraid ever to speak freely, because everyone in the group seemed to believe in a bunch of slogans and historical inaccuracies, because no-one ever spoke up against them. Yes, it would be -- no, it is a shame. There are many such groups. If I argue with somebody about whether or not babies are atheists, to a point, it's about semantics. But there's more to it than that. It's also about not just giving up and keeping quiet when others want to force me to conform and agree.
Are you seeing a lot of parallels between the pressure to conform I'm describing in atheist groups, and the squelching of discussion in conservative religious groups? You are, if you're paying attention. Notice I'm comparing these atheist tendencies, not to all religious groups, but to conservative, reactionary religious groups. That's right: in some cases, you're more likely to find an actual discussion about things among believers than among atheists.
Obviously, not all atheists are that fucked up. Obviously, I'm not the only one denouncing atheist conformity. But -- yeah, there could be more of us. More of you could be speaking up along these lines. No pressure. Only the future of humanity is at stake. (Ha, ha, kidding. Sort of.)
Ich wohne in meinem eigenen Haus,
Hab Niemandem nie nichts nachgemacht
Und - lachte noch jeden Meister aus,
Der nicht sich selber ausgelacht. (I live in my own house, I've never copied anyone, and I've laughed at every master who never laughed at himself.) -- Nietzsche
I can't tell you how many times some atheist or another has immediately assumed that I believed God exists as soon as I disagreed with him or her when he or she said that ending religion would end all of humanity's problems, or that Constantine and the Pope wrote the Bible at Nicea in AD 400, or that being an atheist means one is more intelligent than a believer, or that we are all born atheists, or that religion was invented in order to control the masses (In point of fact, there were no masses when religion began: there were no towns or cities, and humans didn't live in herds, but in small bands.), or that religion poisons everything, or -- if you've hung out in atheist groups for a while, you can add to the list yourself. Yes, being an atheist means not believing in God, it means only that, but that doesn't stop some atheists from adding a whole lot of other rules. A whole lot of other things in which you'd better believe. Or else.
It may often seem as if I argue with other atheists just because I am cantankerous, because something's wrong with me -- and no doubt, there's something to that. Don't worry, I'm in therapy, I'm working on me. But there's more involved here, when I or some other atheist keeps saying to groups of atheists: No, I don't agree. (Not always 100% as politely as that. I'm working on it.) We're also speaking up for others who may be more timid. Clearly, for some people, becoming atheists did not mean ceasing to live by a long list of rules, maxims and Truths which for them are not up for discussion. Others of us, however, cast aside the revealed truths of religion, and DON'T want to replace that religious dogma with atheist dogma. We stopped letting clergypeople and holy books tell us what to believe, and we DON'T want atheist leaders and books by Dawkins, Harris, etc, to tell us what's what. We actually want to think for ourselves. (It's not for everybody. Clearly, it's not for all atheists, not by a million miles.)
And wouldn't it be a shame if some timid atheist was scared away from a group, or stayed in a group but was afraid ever to speak freely, because everyone in the group seemed to believe in a bunch of slogans and historical inaccuracies, because no-one ever spoke up against them. Yes, it would be -- no, it is a shame. There are many such groups. If I argue with somebody about whether or not babies are atheists, to a point, it's about semantics. But there's more to it than that. It's also about not just giving up and keeping quiet when others want to force me to conform and agree.
Are you seeing a lot of parallels between the pressure to conform I'm describing in atheist groups, and the squelching of discussion in conservative religious groups? You are, if you're paying attention. Notice I'm comparing these atheist tendencies, not to all religious groups, but to conservative, reactionary religious groups. That's right: in some cases, you're more likely to find an actual discussion about things among believers than among atheists.
Obviously, not all atheists are that fucked up. Obviously, I'm not the only one denouncing atheist conformity. But -- yeah, there could be more of us. More of you could be speaking up along these lines. No pressure. Only the future of humanity is at stake. (Ha, ha, kidding. Sort of.)
Ich wohne in meinem eigenen Haus,
Hab Niemandem nie nichts nachgemacht
Und - lachte noch jeden Meister aus,
Der nicht sich selber ausgelacht. (I live in my own house, I've never copied anyone, and I've laughed at every master who never laughed at himself.) -- Nietzsche
Thursday, April 9, 2015
Stupid New Atheist Memes
1) "We're all born atheists, until someone starts to lie to us." This meme rests upon the assumption that everyone and everything who and which is not theist, is atheist. If we were to take this meme seriously and apply it consistently, not only human babies but also chewing gum, rocks and eyeglasses, for example, would have to be classed as atheists. Some misanthropic atheists claim that all non-human animals are atheists -- a variation on the Noble Savage myth. How do we know that know that non-human species aren't religious? Exactly the same as how we know a lot of other things about the minds of animals: we don't.
2) "Atheists are smart." A lot of atheists believe silly shit like 1), 3) and 4), so, no, someone isn't necessarily smart just because they're an atheist.
3) "Religion was invented in order to [fill in the blank]." Most commonly: "...in order to [control people]." But we don't know when religion began. It was longer than 30,000 years ago. Maybe much, much longer ago than that. We don't know that it was invented at all, instead of being sincerely believed at first. In short, there's just a whole lot of We don't know involved here. Ironically, if humans and hominids had always been comfortable with simply admitting that they didn't know this or that, religion might never have arisen to begin with. If instead of answering the question: "What is lightning and thunder?" with a standard ancient reply like "It is this deity doing this," the standard answer had always been a simple "I don't know," perhaps no one ever would have believed that deities exist. As far as the idea that unscrupulous political leaders invented religion in order to more easily control the gullible masses: religion seems to be much older than politics. Large-scale human organizations of a type we would call political go back perhaps 10,000 years. Religion had already been around for tens of thousand of years before politics began to develop. I'm inclined to think that people 10,000 years ago who didn't sincerely believe in the existence and power of deities were either extremely rare or entirely non-existent. But -- and I cannot emphasize this strongly enough -- I don't know.
4) "Religion poisons everything." Gross oversimplifications like that tend to be pretty poisonous. Repeating sound bites from people one regards as authorities, repeating them like mantras without questioning them, is very detrimental to one's intellectual development.
Over the course of the years I've examined many other stupid atheist memes. If you interested in what I've had to said about them you can click on blog post labels such as these: stupid atheists, bronze age goat herders, sam harris. The labels, hundreds of them, are in an alphabetical list running down the right-hand side of the screen, underneath the chronological listing of blog posts.
If you want to see a lot more stupid atheist memes you can also find them -- coined, and championed, unfortunately, not criticized -- in books like these:
2) "Atheists are smart." A lot of atheists believe silly shit like 1), 3) and 4), so, no, someone isn't necessarily smart just because they're an atheist.
3) "Religion was invented in order to [fill in the blank]." Most commonly: "...in order to [control people]." But we don't know when religion began. It was longer than 30,000 years ago. Maybe much, much longer ago than that. We don't know that it was invented at all, instead of being sincerely believed at first. In short, there's just a whole lot of We don't know involved here. Ironically, if humans and hominids had always been comfortable with simply admitting that they didn't know this or that, religion might never have arisen to begin with. If instead of answering the question: "What is lightning and thunder?" with a standard ancient reply like "It is this deity doing this," the standard answer had always been a simple "I don't know," perhaps no one ever would have believed that deities exist. As far as the idea that unscrupulous political leaders invented religion in order to more easily control the gullible masses: religion seems to be much older than politics. Large-scale human organizations of a type we would call political go back perhaps 10,000 years. Religion had already been around for tens of thousand of years before politics began to develop. I'm inclined to think that people 10,000 years ago who didn't sincerely believe in the existence and power of deities were either extremely rare or entirely non-existent. But -- and I cannot emphasize this strongly enough -- I don't know.
4) "Religion poisons everything." Gross oversimplifications like that tend to be pretty poisonous. Repeating sound bites from people one regards as authorities, repeating them like mantras without questioning them, is very detrimental to one's intellectual development.
Over the course of the years I've examined many other stupid atheist memes. If you interested in what I've had to said about them you can click on blog post labels such as these: stupid atheists, bronze age goat herders, sam harris. The labels, hundreds of them, are in an alphabetical list running down the right-hand side of the screen, underneath the chronological listing of blog posts.
If you want to see a lot more stupid atheist memes you can also find them -- coined, and championed, unfortunately, not criticized -- in books like these:
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Review Of "ATHEISTS: INSIDE THE WORLD OF NON-BELIEVERS" On CNN
6 atheists were featured: Richard Dawkins; Dave Silverman, president of American Aheists, the people who stir so much shit and accomplish so little by putting up nya-nya-nya-nya-nyaaaaa-nyaaa atheist billboards and litigating to have expressions of religious sentiment removed from public places (Imagine: one day they may succeed in removing "IN GOD WE TRUST" from our money. Whoop-dee-frekin-doo!); and 2 other people, one a young man who leads an atheist group at a university in northern Alabama or Georgia; and the other a young woman who's studying at Harvard Divinity School while simultaneously being an atheist.
Oh, and I almost forgot: also a Christian clergyman who is a closeted atheist. CNN deliberately hid his identity. They are undeliberately but just as effectively hiding the names of the 2 students in the South and at the Harvard Divinity School; their names seem to be written down nowhere on the CNN website or anywhere else on the WWW. The only way I can think of at this point to retrieve their names, and whether the young Southern man is studying in northern Georgia or northern Alabama -- could just possibly be northern Mississippi too -- would be to watch the show again, and frankly, it wasn't that good. If you can retrieve their names you're a better man than I, or maybe just a man with less on his schedule.
Kyra Phillips hosted the show and interviewed all 6 of the featured atheists, and a few other atheists, and some more people.
Richard Dawkins didn't get much airtime, which means he said relatively little on the show with which I disagree. Phillips referred to Dawkins at one point as "the father of atheism," which certainly made me wince, as other people must have winced who were hoping that the show would comment at least a little on the history of atheism, which, believe it or not, Dawkins did not actually invent. Dawkins said that he got a "warm feeling" from the Church of England, and that "nobody" in the Church of England "really believes any of it." Which of course is bullshit, the sort of bullshit we're getting used to hearing from Dawkins. And of course, in the eyes of many present-day atheists, Dawkins actually is something like "the father of atheism," a figure of such immense unearned respect that any and every stupid thing he says is treated like received wisdom. I had been wondering just exactly why some English twits it has been my misfortune to meet insist that Christianity is dead and gone and over with in England; the answer may be just as simple as the explanation of why so any people think that the bible was written by Bronze Age goat herders and that most Muslims support terrorism: Dawkins said so. I know that Rowan Williams, head of the Church of England until 2002, said while in office that he didn't believe in God. I've also noticed how strenuously Williams has backpedaled from that position since he said it, which he hardly would have needed to have done had not so many theist members of the C of E become so very angry at him for saying such a thing. I've also wondered just exactly how much William's public statement of disbelief had to do with his ceasing to be head of the Church of England in 2002.
One of the atheists on the show, I think it may have been Silverman, said that "skeptic," "freethinker" and other terms mean nothing more or less than "atheist," and that atheists who call themselves skeptics or freethinkers instead of atheists are "lying." I almost agree with that. I would say that they're atheists who are still partway in the closet. Very interestingly, Dawkins said that the term "atheist" has acquired so many negative connotations that it may be necessary to come up with another term for us. If he has the faintest clue that he is directly responsible for a large part of those negative connotations, he gave no sign of it on the CNN show. I don't think that we need to replace the term "atheist." I think that a lot of the current stigma attaching to the label will go away if we can get to a state of affairs where no one will find it odd that a person is an atheist, and thinks that almost everything said about religion and atheism by Dawkins, or Sam Harris or PZ Myers, is idiotic -- including, for example, this recent statement by Dawkins that the term "atheist" might have to be replaced. Unfortunately, Richard the Great, if not in fact the father of atheism, is currently still its King.
Definitely the most heart-wrenching parts of the CNN show were from the interview with the parents of the student in the South: while he runs an Ask an Atheist program at the local university, his parents remain fundamentalists who are convinced that their son is going to Hell. It's not a matter of debate, they say: Scripture says that anyone who rejects Christ is going to Hell. I wonder if these people eat pork, or shellfish, or beef cooked with dairy products. It's not a matter of debate that Scripture says those things and a whole long list of other harmless things are abominations.
Jerry Dewitt lives in Louisiana and used to be an evangelical pastor; now he leads atheist church services. As he says, his church now is just like his church was then except that he leaves out Jesus. At one point in his sermon he actually said, "Can I get a 'Darwin'?!" Res ipse loquitur. Dewitt strikes me as a bit of a -- a smooth-talking, self-serving snake-oil salesman, very much indeed like an evangelical pastor.
Silverman: billboards crudely, unkindly mocking religion, and campaigns to take the 10 Commandments off of courthouse walls. He heads the largest atheist organization in the US, and this is what they accomplish. No competing with churches, synagogues and mosques in terms of relief for the poor, or for that matter with more progressive religious institutions in fighting for social justice. No, nothing like that can be addressed as long as "IN GOD WE TRUST" is still on our money. What a bunch of worse-than-useless assholes. Determined to sink to the level of the worst of the theists, cause -- "Hey, they started it!"
As I said, I don't remember the name of the atheist Harvard Divinity School student featured on the show. But I do remember shots of her sitting next to Greg Epstein, Harvard's Humanist Chaplain. And the student has recently been appointed to some sort of Assistant Chaplain office.
And then there's the anonymous clergyman in the atheist closet.
A whole bunch of atheists on this show who still want to be clergy people of some kind or other. If someone had just come from Mars and watched this show, he or she might get the impression that "atheist" is a kind of preacher. I really don't think that that's representative of most atheists. I don't think most of us miss church or temple so much that we want to form some weird atheist version of it. Although I do applaud Epstein's expressed sentiment of unity and acceptance for Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Christians, atheists and etc, his championing of tolerance for people of all beliefs or lack of beliefs. I just don't see the need for atheists to retain so very many of the trappings of religion.
The Harvard Divinity School student may end up actually knowing a lot about religion, studying it full-time as she is. And knowledge is a good thing. Knowledge is what separates the marvelous, awe-inspiring biologist Richard Dawkins
from the zany, out-of-touch crackpot and horrible islamophobic bigot Richard Dawkins.
As for the clergyman who's secretly an atheist, and all the other people who are secretly atheists, I see no need to pretty it up or tone it down: I've got no sympathy for you. Not for closet atheists in the US, whining about your anguish and isolation while you perpetuate the institutions and customs which you claim are oppressing you. In plain fact, you are oppressing those of us who are out. And you want me to feel sorry for you? In some other countries being an atheist can actually be dangerous, but in the US, if you actually want to do something for atheists, you need to come out. And that includes calling yourself an atheist and not some synonym like a skeptic or a freethinker.
Oh, and I almost forgot: also a Christian clergyman who is a closeted atheist. CNN deliberately hid his identity. They are undeliberately but just as effectively hiding the names of the 2 students in the South and at the Harvard Divinity School; their names seem to be written down nowhere on the CNN website or anywhere else on the WWW. The only way I can think of at this point to retrieve their names, and whether the young Southern man is studying in northern Georgia or northern Alabama -- could just possibly be northern Mississippi too -- would be to watch the show again, and frankly, it wasn't that good. If you can retrieve their names you're a better man than I, or maybe just a man with less on his schedule.
Kyra Phillips hosted the show and interviewed all 6 of the featured atheists, and a few other atheists, and some more people.
Richard Dawkins didn't get much airtime, which means he said relatively little on the show with which I disagree. Phillips referred to Dawkins at one point as "the father of atheism," which certainly made me wince, as other people must have winced who were hoping that the show would comment at least a little on the history of atheism, which, believe it or not, Dawkins did not actually invent. Dawkins said that he got a "warm feeling" from the Church of England, and that "nobody" in the Church of England "really believes any of it." Which of course is bullshit, the sort of bullshit we're getting used to hearing from Dawkins. And of course, in the eyes of many present-day atheists, Dawkins actually is something like "the father of atheism," a figure of such immense unearned respect that any and every stupid thing he says is treated like received wisdom. I had been wondering just exactly why some English twits it has been my misfortune to meet insist that Christianity is dead and gone and over with in England; the answer may be just as simple as the explanation of why so any people think that the bible was written by Bronze Age goat herders and that most Muslims support terrorism: Dawkins said so. I know that Rowan Williams, head of the Church of England until 2002, said while in office that he didn't believe in God. I've also noticed how strenuously Williams has backpedaled from that position since he said it, which he hardly would have needed to have done had not so many theist members of the C of E become so very angry at him for saying such a thing. I've also wondered just exactly how much William's public statement of disbelief had to do with his ceasing to be head of the Church of England in 2002.
One of the atheists on the show, I think it may have been Silverman, said that "skeptic," "freethinker" and other terms mean nothing more or less than "atheist," and that atheists who call themselves skeptics or freethinkers instead of atheists are "lying." I almost agree with that. I would say that they're atheists who are still partway in the closet. Very interestingly, Dawkins said that the term "atheist" has acquired so many negative connotations that it may be necessary to come up with another term for us. If he has the faintest clue that he is directly responsible for a large part of those negative connotations, he gave no sign of it on the CNN show. I don't think that we need to replace the term "atheist." I think that a lot of the current stigma attaching to the label will go away if we can get to a state of affairs where no one will find it odd that a person is an atheist, and thinks that almost everything said about religion and atheism by Dawkins, or Sam Harris or PZ Myers, is idiotic -- including, for example, this recent statement by Dawkins that the term "atheist" might have to be replaced. Unfortunately, Richard the Great, if not in fact the father of atheism, is currently still its King.
Definitely the most heart-wrenching parts of the CNN show were from the interview with the parents of the student in the South: while he runs an Ask an Atheist program at the local university, his parents remain fundamentalists who are convinced that their son is going to Hell. It's not a matter of debate, they say: Scripture says that anyone who rejects Christ is going to Hell. I wonder if these people eat pork, or shellfish, or beef cooked with dairy products. It's not a matter of debate that Scripture says those things and a whole long list of other harmless things are abominations.
Jerry Dewitt lives in Louisiana and used to be an evangelical pastor; now he leads atheist church services. As he says, his church now is just like his church was then except that he leaves out Jesus. At one point in his sermon he actually said, "Can I get a 'Darwin'?!" Res ipse loquitur. Dewitt strikes me as a bit of a -- a smooth-talking, self-serving snake-oil salesman, very much indeed like an evangelical pastor.
Silverman: billboards crudely, unkindly mocking religion, and campaigns to take the 10 Commandments off of courthouse walls. He heads the largest atheist organization in the US, and this is what they accomplish. No competing with churches, synagogues and mosques in terms of relief for the poor, or for that matter with more progressive religious institutions in fighting for social justice. No, nothing like that can be addressed as long as "IN GOD WE TRUST" is still on our money. What a bunch of worse-than-useless assholes. Determined to sink to the level of the worst of the theists, cause -- "Hey, they started it!"
As I said, I don't remember the name of the atheist Harvard Divinity School student featured on the show. But I do remember shots of her sitting next to Greg Epstein, Harvard's Humanist Chaplain. And the student has recently been appointed to some sort of Assistant Chaplain office.
And then there's the anonymous clergyman in the atheist closet.
A whole bunch of atheists on this show who still want to be clergy people of some kind or other. If someone had just come from Mars and watched this show, he or she might get the impression that "atheist" is a kind of preacher. I really don't think that that's representative of most atheists. I don't think most of us miss church or temple so much that we want to form some weird atheist version of it. Although I do applaud Epstein's expressed sentiment of unity and acceptance for Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Christians, atheists and etc, his championing of tolerance for people of all beliefs or lack of beliefs. I just don't see the need for atheists to retain so very many of the trappings of religion.
The Harvard Divinity School student may end up actually knowing a lot about religion, studying it full-time as she is. And knowledge is a good thing. Knowledge is what separates the marvelous, awe-inspiring biologist Richard Dawkins
from the zany, out-of-touch crackpot and horrible islamophobic bigot Richard Dawkins.
As for the clergyman who's secretly an atheist, and all the other people who are secretly atheists, I see no need to pretty it up or tone it down: I've got no sympathy for you. Not for closet atheists in the US, whining about your anguish and isolation while you perpetuate the institutions and customs which you claim are oppressing you. In plain fact, you are oppressing those of us who are out. And you want me to feel sorry for you? In some other countries being an atheist can actually be dangerous, but in the US, if you actually want to do something for atheists, you need to come out. And that includes calling yourself an atheist and not some synonym like a skeptic or a freethinker.
Sunday, March 22, 2015
On Tuesday, March 24, At 9PM Eastern Time, CNN Will Air A Show About Atheists
In some circles I travel in, the title of this blog post contains no new information. The people in these circles are all atheists, and they have all known about this upcoming special report on atheism for some time already, and they all are besides themselves waiting for Tuesday evening to hurry up and arrive and they can see the show and love it or hate it, as the case may be. Love it for acknowledging that atheists exist and aren't monsters, hate it for inadequately representing the particular kind of atheist they are, or what have you.
If they show atheists who, like me, deplore the actions of the New Atheists/movement atheists, the movement atheists will be furious -- but whatever, they're always furious. It's tiresome.
If they devote some time to me and my blog, and if as a result I become rich and famous, well, that'll be really neat. (Wouldn't hurt a bit with Nobel Prize campaign either.) I'm not holding my breath about this, because snippets of interviews with Dawkins and others done for the show have already been circulating for a while, and they haven't interviewed me. If they want to interview me: every reader's comment on this blog is moderated before being published. If CNN wants to contact me they can leave a comment with their contact info, nobody else will see the contact info. (If they want to be absolutely super-careful they can write "PERSONAL" at the top of the message, but that really would be overkill.)
I don't think they're going to mention me.
It's clear that they're going to look at some New Atheists/movement atheists. The question uppermost in my mind is if and to what extent they will cover atheists who, like my own wonderful self, are at odds with the New Atheists and don't want them to be thought of as representing us. New Atheists seem often to think of themselves as synonymous with atheism in general. It really would be too bad if this misconception were to spread beyond the New Atheists.
CNN Special Report: Atheists
If they show atheists who, like me, deplore the actions of the New Atheists/movement atheists, the movement atheists will be furious -- but whatever, they're always furious. It's tiresome.
If they devote some time to me and my blog, and if as a result I become rich and famous, well, that'll be really neat. (Wouldn't hurt a bit with Nobel Prize campaign either.) I'm not holding my breath about this, because snippets of interviews with Dawkins and others done for the show have already been circulating for a while, and they haven't interviewed me. If they want to interview me: every reader's comment on this blog is moderated before being published. If CNN wants to contact me they can leave a comment with their contact info, nobody else will see the contact info. (If they want to be absolutely super-careful they can write "PERSONAL" at the top of the message, but that really would be overkill.)
I don't think they're going to mention me.
It's clear that they're going to look at some New Atheists/movement atheists. The question uppermost in my mind is if and to what extent they will cover atheists who, like my own wonderful self, are at odds with the New Atheists and don't want them to be thought of as representing us. New Atheists seem often to think of themselves as synonymous with atheism in general. It really would be too bad if this misconception were to spread beyond the New Atheists.
CNN Special Report: Atheists
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Stuff Which Is Depressing Me Today
Okay, one thing has been watching people applaud Sam Harris for saying that soon computers will be able to tell us what is right and wrong. Right for whom? Wrong in what way? you might well ask immediately, and immediately you'd already be over Harris' head. But the really depressing part is that millions of people think that Harris is a genius.
Back in 1982 Donald Fagen, lead vocalist of Steely Dan, released a solo album entitled The Nightfly,
which was a big hit and still seems to be selling pretty briskly decades later, wow. One of the singles from The Nightfly was "I.G.Y. (What a Beautiful World)," an hilariously sarcastic satire of visions of a beautiful future, visions which made the rounds of American popular culture in the 1950's. The lyrics lampoon predictions of, among other things,
"Just machines to make big decisions/Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision"
Well, here we are 60 years past the starry-eyed mid-50's and an entire Jesus past Fagen lampooning some of that "simpler" time's silliest ideas. It's 2015. Millions of people oohing and ahhhing at Sam Harris seriously proposing some of the very same stuff, not to mention some cover versions of "I.G.Y." by gospel groups and such who appear to be playing it straight, force me to ask myself: How many people ever got that Fagen was joking? and: Are a bunch of morons eventually going to put morality computers in place and force everyone to live by their dictates?
Besides that bone-chilling dystopian nightmare, another thing that's got me down today is that a fake news story -- or perhaps a sincere but stupid and mistaken news story -- made the rounds, saying that millions of Saudis had rejected their faith and thrown their Korans into sewers, and that some people believed it and applauded it. Believed that millions of people could have that significant of a change in mind without their having been any sign of it in yesterday's news, and then applauded millions of books being (they thought) thrown into sewers.
Back in 1982 Donald Fagen, lead vocalist of Steely Dan, released a solo album entitled The Nightfly,
which was a big hit and still seems to be selling pretty briskly decades later, wow. One of the singles from The Nightfly was "I.G.Y. (What a Beautiful World)," an hilariously sarcastic satire of visions of a beautiful future, visions which made the rounds of American popular culture in the 1950's. The lyrics lampoon predictions of, among other things,
"Just machines to make big decisions/Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision"
Well, here we are 60 years past the starry-eyed mid-50's and an entire Jesus past Fagen lampooning some of that "simpler" time's silliest ideas. It's 2015. Millions of people oohing and ahhhing at Sam Harris seriously proposing some of the very same stuff, not to mention some cover versions of "I.G.Y." by gospel groups and such who appear to be playing it straight, force me to ask myself: How many people ever got that Fagen was joking? and: Are a bunch of morons eventually going to put morality computers in place and force everyone to live by their dictates?
Besides that bone-chilling dystopian nightmare, another thing that's got me down today is that a fake news story -- or perhaps a sincere but stupid and mistaken news story -- made the rounds, saying that millions of Saudis had rejected their faith and thrown their Korans into sewers, and that some people believed it and applauded it. Believed that millions of people could have that significant of a change in mind without their having been any sign of it in yesterday's news, and then applauded millions of books being (they thought) thrown into sewers.
Friday, March 6, 2015
Here's An Atheist Strategy: BE A MENSCH
I for one am actually tired of people assuming I'm an asshole as soon as they learn I'm as atheist. I am an asshole, but I'm not an asshole because I'm an atheist.
And what good does it possibly do us to be dicks in the name of atheism?
What am I talking about? you may be wondering. Well for instance:
“It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what." -- Stephen Fry
Well, I would love to sit down with Stephen Fry and talk about that or whatever else he'd like to talk about, I think he's very wonderful in very many ways. I don't think that the quote above was the most brilliant think he ever wrote or said. Not even in the top 5,000. And it disturbs me how many atheists quote that as if it were the pinnacle of Fry's brilliant career.
It irks me how many atheists brag about how unpleasant they are to Jehovah's Witnesses and other religious people who knock on their door. Some of them have begun an undeclared contest (For all I know the competition may actually have been explicitly declared in some circles, but I haven't actually seen that yet.) to see who can be the most unpleasant in such situations. Some of them can think of nothing to do vis a vis religion but verbally abuse it and waste everybody's time in court having the Ten Commandments removed from public places and/or gaining permission to add gruesome atheist billboards and would-be artworks to the public world.
Conversely, it pleases me that I am far from the only one to whom it has occurred that there may actually be something to gain for the cause of atheism and of tolerance for those with different worldviews in being known as an atheist and being nice -- like Stephen Fry is, though you wouldn't know it if you only know him from the... (I'm being nice now, the whole point of this goddam post is being nice.) ...the people who only quote that one... thing from him.
And what good does it possibly do us to be dicks in the name of atheism?
What am I talking about? you may be wondering. Well for instance:
“It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what." -- Stephen Fry
Well, I would love to sit down with Stephen Fry and talk about that or whatever else he'd like to talk about, I think he's very wonderful in very many ways. I don't think that the quote above was the most brilliant think he ever wrote or said. Not even in the top 5,000. And it disturbs me how many atheists quote that as if it were the pinnacle of Fry's brilliant career.
It irks me how many atheists brag about how unpleasant they are to Jehovah's Witnesses and other religious people who knock on their door. Some of them have begun an undeclared contest (For all I know the competition may actually have been explicitly declared in some circles, but I haven't actually seen that yet.) to see who can be the most unpleasant in such situations. Some of them can think of nothing to do vis a vis religion but verbally abuse it and waste everybody's time in court having the Ten Commandments removed from public places and/or gaining permission to add gruesome atheist billboards and would-be artworks to the public world.
Conversely, it pleases me that I am far from the only one to whom it has occurred that there may actually be something to gain for the cause of atheism and of tolerance for those with different worldviews in being known as an atheist and being nice -- like Stephen Fry is, though you wouldn't know it if you only know him from the... (I'm being nice now, the whole point of this goddam post is being nice.) ...the people who only quote that one... thing from him.
Monday, March 2, 2015
More Self-Criticism
A couple of days ago, in the blog post Signs That There's Something Seriously Wrong With Me, I attempted to begin a course of rigorous self-criticism. Now I'll attempt to continue that criticism and get more in-depth:
Earlier today I blogged about a popular talking point among movement atheists, the assertion that they know the Bible better than Christians do, that many of them have read it all the way through. I... Uh... Well I flat-out called that assertion horseshit. So in the post about bible-reading, it seems I did pretty much exactly what I criticized myself for a couple of days ago: I was harshly unpleasant, I delivered more or less a verbal slap in the face.
Well... that's what I do here, in a lot of posts anyway: criticize others without a lot of restraint. But I'm actually not going to criticize the harsh blog post about Bible-reading right now; rather, I'm going to examine some of my actions following the publishing of that post. Maybe I need to critique such posts, maybe I very badly need to do so, but facing that possibility is more than I can handle right now. Crawl before you can walk.
I linked the Bible-reading post in a few online discussion groups, and right away I got some negative responses from atheists claiming to know the Bible very well. Today's self-criticism will consist of examining my responses to some of those comments:
One person claimed that I could open a Bible to any page and he'd be able to tell me exactly how the text had been altered. My response to that was: "Ah, more bullshit, right on cue!" Last I checked there had been no response to that, neither by the person I was addressing nor from a third party.
Another person asked what was my evidence that movement atheists didn't know the Bible well? I told him that I had already answered that question in the link to the blog post, which mentioned how movement atheists' discussion of the Bible tended to revolve around the same 12 verses from Genesis and Leviticus and 5 snarky quotes about the Bible from famous people. He said that wasn't an answer. I felt it was an answer, but I didn't respond, nothing to say occurring to me which I felt would be productive. (Insulting responses occurred to me but I kept them to myself.) After we had exchanged a few more comments, some having to do with the Flood, I said that I was unsure whether Moses or Jesus had existed, much less Noah; he said he doubted if any of them existed; by "all of them" I understood him to mean "all of the people mentioned in the Bible," and I said: "That's exactly the kind of statement that makes me doubt you've read the Bible at all." Perhaps a minute later, I commented: "Sorry, maybe I misunderstood you: if by 'all of them' you just mean 'Noah, Moses and Jesus,' that's certainly completely different than if you meant 'all of the people mentioned in the Bible.'" This guy had been sending a pretty steady of stream of comments, and I waited a while for more, but no more came, and that's when it occurred to me that he might have broken off the conversation, perhaps un-subscribed from the thread, because I was being rude and insulting.
Perhaps other people looking on both of those threads un-subscribed because I was being rude.
Maybe people stop communicating with me all the time because I'm being rude.
I want to be an extremely rich and famous writer. But if I became rich and famous, and got invited to be a guest on "Conan," and Conan and I were chatting about, oh, let's say, the Bible, and at a certain point the crowd responded to something which Conan or I had said with enthusiastic applause, and I turned to the audience, or should I say turned on them, and interrupted the applause by saying something like, for instance, "Applauding that just demonstrates that you're all uneducated and ignorant," well, I suppose it's possible that one single such comment at such a place and time might suddenly make me much less popular. I can imagine Conan, and other talk-show hosts, not inviting me back to their shows because of one single remark like that. And the thing is: I can easily imagine myself saying something like that at such a time and place, saying it spontaneously, without a thought.
And the thing is -- I've said a lot of things like that to a lot of different people over the years. In fact, I've said a lot of things which were much harsher than that to perfect strangers, for no reason at all other than that I thought it would be funny to be mean.
Okay. Getting clearer and clearer: I have a problem. It's especially a problem if I want millions of people to love me.
Up until that other post a couple of days ago I tended to agree with my Mom's opinion of me: that I'm a sensitive angel and a misunderstood genius. Can't really go 100% with that assessment any more. (Thinking about this reminded me of Marge Simpson looking at each member of her family in turn and saying what she admired about them, and coming to Bart, and saying: "I like Bart's... [long pause] ...I like Bart.") Whaddayagonnado, she's my Mom. I love you, Mom. But if I continue in this new habit of looking mercilessly at myself, maybe I can become a little less of an unbearable asshole. And maybe that will lead to some good changes in my life. I would like a whole bunch of good changes in my life, please.
One thing I'm not going to do is to start lying, and saying positive things I don't mean. For example: I stand by what I said about movement atheists/New Atheists not being the Biblical scholars they claim to be. It may be a harsh truth, but it's the truth. But maybe I can change the way I phrase things, change my choice of words. Maybe in some situations, for example, "I call bullshit" is a less constructive choice of words than, oh, I don't know... "I think we may have been living with an illusion here." I will give all of this some serious thought.
As always, I wonder how many Facebook groups I've been banned from today.
Earlier today I blogged about a popular talking point among movement atheists, the assertion that they know the Bible better than Christians do, that many of them have read it all the way through. I... Uh... Well I flat-out called that assertion horseshit. So in the post about bible-reading, it seems I did pretty much exactly what I criticized myself for a couple of days ago: I was harshly unpleasant, I delivered more or less a verbal slap in the face.
Well... that's what I do here, in a lot of posts anyway: criticize others without a lot of restraint. But I'm actually not going to criticize the harsh blog post about Bible-reading right now; rather, I'm going to examine some of my actions following the publishing of that post. Maybe I need to critique such posts, maybe I very badly need to do so, but facing that possibility is more than I can handle right now. Crawl before you can walk.
I linked the Bible-reading post in a few online discussion groups, and right away I got some negative responses from atheists claiming to know the Bible very well. Today's self-criticism will consist of examining my responses to some of those comments:
One person claimed that I could open a Bible to any page and he'd be able to tell me exactly how the text had been altered. My response to that was: "Ah, more bullshit, right on cue!" Last I checked there had been no response to that, neither by the person I was addressing nor from a third party.
Another person asked what was my evidence that movement atheists didn't know the Bible well? I told him that I had already answered that question in the link to the blog post, which mentioned how movement atheists' discussion of the Bible tended to revolve around the same 12 verses from Genesis and Leviticus and 5 snarky quotes about the Bible from famous people. He said that wasn't an answer. I felt it was an answer, but I didn't respond, nothing to say occurring to me which I felt would be productive. (Insulting responses occurred to me but I kept them to myself.) After we had exchanged a few more comments, some having to do with the Flood, I said that I was unsure whether Moses or Jesus had existed, much less Noah; he said he doubted if any of them existed; by "all of them" I understood him to mean "all of the people mentioned in the Bible," and I said: "That's exactly the kind of statement that makes me doubt you've read the Bible at all." Perhaps a minute later, I commented: "Sorry, maybe I misunderstood you: if by 'all of them' you just mean 'Noah, Moses and Jesus,' that's certainly completely different than if you meant 'all of the people mentioned in the Bible.'" This guy had been sending a pretty steady of stream of comments, and I waited a while for more, but no more came, and that's when it occurred to me that he might have broken off the conversation, perhaps un-subscribed from the thread, because I was being rude and insulting.
Perhaps other people looking on both of those threads un-subscribed because I was being rude.
Maybe people stop communicating with me all the time because I'm being rude.
I want to be an extremely rich and famous writer. But if I became rich and famous, and got invited to be a guest on "Conan," and Conan and I were chatting about, oh, let's say, the Bible, and at a certain point the crowd responded to something which Conan or I had said with enthusiastic applause, and I turned to the audience, or should I say turned on them, and interrupted the applause by saying something like, for instance, "Applauding that just demonstrates that you're all uneducated and ignorant," well, I suppose it's possible that one single such comment at such a place and time might suddenly make me much less popular. I can imagine Conan, and other talk-show hosts, not inviting me back to their shows because of one single remark like that. And the thing is: I can easily imagine myself saying something like that at such a time and place, saying it spontaneously, without a thought.
And the thing is -- I've said a lot of things like that to a lot of different people over the years. In fact, I've said a lot of things which were much harsher than that to perfect strangers, for no reason at all other than that I thought it would be funny to be mean.
Okay. Getting clearer and clearer: I have a problem. It's especially a problem if I want millions of people to love me.
Up until that other post a couple of days ago I tended to agree with my Mom's opinion of me: that I'm a sensitive angel and a misunderstood genius. Can't really go 100% with that assessment any more. (Thinking about this reminded me of Marge Simpson looking at each member of her family in turn and saying what she admired about them, and coming to Bart, and saying: "I like Bart's... [long pause] ...I like Bart.") Whaddayagonnado, she's my Mom. I love you, Mom. But if I continue in this new habit of looking mercilessly at myself, maybe I can become a little less of an unbearable asshole. And maybe that will lead to some good changes in my life. I would like a whole bunch of good changes in my life, please.
One thing I'm not going to do is to start lying, and saying positive things I don't mean. For example: I stand by what I said about movement atheists/New Atheists not being the Biblical scholars they claim to be. It may be a harsh truth, but it's the truth. But maybe I can change the way I phrase things, change my choice of words. Maybe in some situations, for example, "I call bullshit" is a less constructive choice of words than, oh, I don't know... "I think we may have been living with an illusion here." I will give all of this some serious thought.
As always, I wonder how many Facebook groups I've been banned from today.
Atheists Who Claim, Among Other Things, That They've Read The Entire Bible
You ever wonder why so many atheists who claim they've read the entire Bible only ever talk about 12 verses from Genesis and Leviticus, plus 5 snarky quotes about the Bible from famous people? If you have, I certainly hope it didn't take you too long to figure out that it's because they're actually only ever read those 12 verses and 5 quotes.
Now let me be clear -- some atheists actually have read the entire Bible.
For example, a lot of academic Biblical scholars are atheists. I wouldn't be surprised if you're surprised to hear this: those academics don't tend to announce loud and proud that they're atheists, the way that New Atheists, aka movement atheists, tend to do. In fact, they tend to suck up to the huge rich religious institutions which butter their bread much too much to suit me. (NO ONE ESCAPES MY WRATH! NOT EVEN ME!)
Back to the movement atheists: who are they kidding? Each other, that's who. The nonsense about how they've all studied the entire Bible AND the Koran AND the Epic of Gilgamesh is a familiar example to anyone who's familiar with this movement. I came across another example today, a particularly striking example of an atheist kidding him- or herself: someone asking rhetorically why religious believers are so so desperate to gain the approval of atheists. I'll tell you why, Sparky: because they're not. Because you made that up.
But how do I know that so many movement atheists/New Atheists are making up that bit about having read the entire Bible? It's not just that they only mention those 12 verses and 5 snarky quotes over and over and over and over, and never mention Moses' confrontations of Pharaoh, or Ezra, and how it seems pretty clear now that it was Ezra and not Moses who collected and edited the Pentateuch, or Saul and Jonathon and David and Goliath and Solomon and Bathsheeba, or Job, or any of the particularly dramatic aspects of Revelation, or anything. If you've read all 2000 pages you've noticed more than those 12 verses. But over and above that, if there really was a community of Bible readers here, then people like Michael Paulkovich would get laughed out of that community long before being published in its leading periodicals. I'm not saying that Paulkovich hasn't read the entire Bible, it's just possible that he has. But it seems pretty likely that he's somehow managed to avoid any knowledge of the Greek and Latin classics which were written around the same time. That sort of avoidance is possible with one individual who's already gone to the trouble of reading the entire Bible, butextremely unlikely impossible in an entire close-knit community full of people thoroughly familiar with the Bible.
On the contrary, what we have here is a bubble, people sealing themselves off from those who actually have studied these ancients texts. Sealing themselves off and creating a fictional world in which religious believers are desperate for their approval and the entire Bible is like Leviticus and ancient Judea and Galilee were swarming with historians and there were newspapers and detailed court records so that anyone remotely resembling Jesus would have been mentioned in numerous non-Biblical written sources, a fictional world in which Muslims are either terrorists or approve of terrorism, and Obama is secretly an atheist because no Christians are as progressive politically as he is, and only religious believers teach Biblical studies in universities, and so forth.
Obviously, not all movement atheists/New Atheists are that wrong about all of the above. The point is that none of the above is immediately laughed out of the room, and all of it should be. All of the above is directly at odds with common knowledge. (Again -- maybe except for the part about the religious beliefs of academic Biblical scholars. Again, that may not be common knowledge, because the scholars tend to suck up too much to the religious institutions who give them all those fat grants and fellowships, and so they don't want to rock the boat by making their lack of belief too plain. The same way that almost none of the academics dare to rock the boat by voicing less than full certainty that Jesus existed. NO ONE ESCAPES MY WRATH!)
What's the point of shaking off nonsensical religious beliefs only to turn around and either constantly spout other nonsense, or act as if that other nonsense is fine because it's atheists who are spouting it? Sorry guys, but I'm not having it. The main point here is making sense. The existence or non-existence of God is just one of very many topics upon which we can make sense or not. You don't get a free pass from me on all those other topics just because we agree on that one.
Now let me be clear -- some atheists actually have read the entire Bible.
For example, a lot of academic Biblical scholars are atheists. I wouldn't be surprised if you're surprised to hear this: those academics don't tend to announce loud and proud that they're atheists, the way that New Atheists, aka movement atheists, tend to do. In fact, they tend to suck up to the huge rich religious institutions which butter their bread much too much to suit me. (NO ONE ESCAPES MY WRATH! NOT EVEN ME!)
Back to the movement atheists: who are they kidding? Each other, that's who. The nonsense about how they've all studied the entire Bible AND the Koran AND the Epic of Gilgamesh is a familiar example to anyone who's familiar with this movement. I came across another example today, a particularly striking example of an atheist kidding him- or herself: someone asking rhetorically why religious believers are so so desperate to gain the approval of atheists. I'll tell you why, Sparky: because they're not. Because you made that up.
But how do I know that so many movement atheists/New Atheists are making up that bit about having read the entire Bible? It's not just that they only mention those 12 verses and 5 snarky quotes over and over and over and over, and never mention Moses' confrontations of Pharaoh, or Ezra, and how it seems pretty clear now that it was Ezra and not Moses who collected and edited the Pentateuch, or Saul and Jonathon and David and Goliath and Solomon and Bathsheeba, or Job, or any of the particularly dramatic aspects of Revelation, or anything. If you've read all 2000 pages you've noticed more than those 12 verses. But over and above that, if there really was a community of Bible readers here, then people like Michael Paulkovich would get laughed out of that community long before being published in its leading periodicals. I'm not saying that Paulkovich hasn't read the entire Bible, it's just possible that he has. But it seems pretty likely that he's somehow managed to avoid any knowledge of the Greek and Latin classics which were written around the same time. That sort of avoidance is possible with one individual who's already gone to the trouble of reading the entire Bible, but
On the contrary, what we have here is a bubble, people sealing themselves off from those who actually have studied these ancients texts. Sealing themselves off and creating a fictional world in which religious believers are desperate for their approval and the entire Bible is like Leviticus and ancient Judea and Galilee were swarming with historians and there were newspapers and detailed court records so that anyone remotely resembling Jesus would have been mentioned in numerous non-Biblical written sources, a fictional world in which Muslims are either terrorists or approve of terrorism, and Obama is secretly an atheist because no Christians are as progressive politically as he is, and only religious believers teach Biblical studies in universities, and so forth.
Obviously, not all movement atheists/New Atheists are that wrong about all of the above. The point is that none of the above is immediately laughed out of the room, and all of it should be. All of the above is directly at odds with common knowledge. (Again -- maybe except for the part about the religious beliefs of academic Biblical scholars. Again, that may not be common knowledge, because the scholars tend to suck up too much to the religious institutions who give them all those fat grants and fellowships, and so they don't want to rock the boat by making their lack of belief too plain. The same way that almost none of the academics dare to rock the boat by voicing less than full certainty that Jesus existed. NO ONE ESCAPES MY WRATH!)
What's the point of shaking off nonsensical religious beliefs only to turn around and either constantly spout other nonsense, or act as if that other nonsense is fine because it's atheists who are spouting it? Sorry guys, but I'm not having it. The main point here is making sense. The existence or non-existence of God is just one of very many topics upon which we can make sense or not. You don't get a free pass from me on all those other topics just because we agree on that one.
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Movement Atheism And Why I'm Done With It
Nicht geeignet zum Parteimann. – Wer viel denkt, eignet sich nicht zum Parteimann: er denkt sich zu bald durch die Partei hindurch. (Not a suitable party member. - He who thinks a lot is not a suitable political party member: he thinks his way too quickly all the way through the party.) -- Nietzsche, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, aphorism 579
And while I was looking that up to make sure I quoted it word-for-word, I also noticed this, which actually applies even more to this post:
Feinde der Wahrheit. – Ueberzeugungen sind gefährlichere Feinde der Wahrheit, als Lügen. (Enemies of the truth. - Firm convictions are more dangerous enemies to the truth than lies.)-- ibid, aphorism 483
Yeah. Freddy got off some good ones.
"Movement atheism" is the same thing which I've been referring to in this blog as "New Atheism," and which unfortunately many people have come to refer to simply as "atheism" : they're the people who like Richard Dawkins (on religion, not identical with the set [which includes me] who like Dawkins' writing on biology) and Sam Harris, and put up those billboards saying, essentially, "Neener, neener, you stoopid theists!" and are gunning for the "In God We Trust" on your currency and the Ten Commandments on the walls of your courthouses. (What's next, the reproduction of a Madonna and Child by Fra Filippo Lippi taped to the wall above my computer table?) I recently heard it referred to as "movement atheism," and it occurred to me that if I used that phrase, more people might understand what I'm talking about than if I said "New Atheism." And I think that more people understanding me just might be a good thing. You be the judge. (And put whatever you want to on yr walls.)
Now, when it comes to the first of those two aphorisms by Nietzsche at the beginning of this post, I differ with Nietzsche when it comes to political parties: I don't agree with everything in the Democratic party line, but it's them or the Republicans and they're much preferable to the Republicans. The difference between the two parties makes big differences in people's lives.
But if we compare movement atheism or New Atheism to a political party, what exactly are they accomplishing, besides pissing people off? I don't care about the Ten Commandments on courthouse walls, I care about the verdicts reached within those walls. I don't give a tiny flying speck of crap about the words "In God We Trust" on US currency, I care about freedom of religion in the US, whether that freedom, including freedom from religion if that's what you want, is guarded by people who think Jesus is their close personal friend, or not.
The second aphorism, about firm convictions being more dangerous to the truth than lies, fits movement atheists/New Atheists as snugly as a straightjacket. If you haven't experienced it, you wouldn't believe how much time these yokels waste arguing that Hitler was a Catholic and that Einstein was an atheist. First and foremost -- who gives a tiny gnat's ass about either Hitler's or Einstein's religion? I'll tell you who: movement atheists/New Atheists and the Christians, observing Jews, Muslims, neo-pagans and other believers dull-witted enough to waste their lives arguing with them. Neither side wants to actually investigate Hitler's or Einstein's beliefs. The movement atheists/New Atheists are firmly convinced that Hitler was a Catholic and Einstein was an atheist, the others are firmly convinced that Hitler was an atheist and Einstein a theist or deist, no one's mind is open even a tiny crack in either side, they just want to score rhetorical points against each other, in exchanges with all of the subtlety of the opening of the Itchy & Scratchy Show. Furthermore, each side is firmly convinced that the other is stupid -- they might actually be right about that, for once -- and further than that, they very often immediately assume that anyone who has anything negative to say about anything they've said is on the opposite side of the theistic question -- if you criticize an atheist you must believe God exists, if you criticize a theist you must be an atheist. And this appallingly simplistic mindset is unfortunately displayed not just indiscussions arguments verbal fights about Hitler and Einstein and other famous people and Which Side They Were On, but regarding a wide range of other subjects too. A pox on both their pinheaded houses.
These morons are why many atheists have started to refuse to call themselves atheists.
Just a few years ago, when I first stumbled over atheists groups, I had such high hopes. I assumed that atheists generally would be pretty bright.
And I might have been right about that. But you don't have to be too bright to be appalled by people who verbally abuse billions of Muslims as if they were all violent atavistic extremists and all Catholics as if they favored the sexual abuse of children, who cheer at videos of books being burned and/or soiled with human waste, and who do the Itchy & Scratchy with religious morons all the livelong cousinbumpin day. I have a feeling that maybe most of the truly bright atheists are appalled by Dawkins' so-called Brights and their ilk much more quickly than I was. In any case, the more I see of movement atheists/New Atheists, the more I like religion.
And while I was looking that up to make sure I quoted it word-for-word, I also noticed this, which actually applies even more to this post:
Feinde der Wahrheit. – Ueberzeugungen sind gefährlichere Feinde der Wahrheit, als Lügen. (Enemies of the truth. - Firm convictions are more dangerous enemies to the truth than lies.)-- ibid, aphorism 483
Yeah. Freddy got off some good ones.
"Movement atheism" is the same thing which I've been referring to in this blog as "New Atheism," and which unfortunately many people have come to refer to simply as "atheism" : they're the people who like Richard Dawkins (on religion, not identical with the set [which includes me] who like Dawkins' writing on biology) and Sam Harris, and put up those billboards saying, essentially, "Neener, neener, you stoopid theists!" and are gunning for the "In God We Trust" on your currency and the Ten Commandments on the walls of your courthouses. (What's next, the reproduction of a Madonna and Child by Fra Filippo Lippi taped to the wall above my computer table?) I recently heard it referred to as "movement atheism," and it occurred to me that if I used that phrase, more people might understand what I'm talking about than if I said "New Atheism." And I think that more people understanding me just might be a good thing. You be the judge. (And put whatever you want to on yr walls.)
Now, when it comes to the first of those two aphorisms by Nietzsche at the beginning of this post, I differ with Nietzsche when it comes to political parties: I don't agree with everything in the Democratic party line, but it's them or the Republicans and they're much preferable to the Republicans. The difference between the two parties makes big differences in people's lives.
But if we compare movement atheism or New Atheism to a political party, what exactly are they accomplishing, besides pissing people off? I don't care about the Ten Commandments on courthouse walls, I care about the verdicts reached within those walls. I don't give a tiny flying speck of crap about the words "In God We Trust" on US currency, I care about freedom of religion in the US, whether that freedom, including freedom from religion if that's what you want, is guarded by people who think Jesus is their close personal friend, or not.
The second aphorism, about firm convictions being more dangerous to the truth than lies, fits movement atheists/New Atheists as snugly as a straightjacket. If you haven't experienced it, you wouldn't believe how much time these yokels waste arguing that Hitler was a Catholic and that Einstein was an atheist. First and foremost -- who gives a tiny gnat's ass about either Hitler's or Einstein's religion? I'll tell you who: movement atheists/New Atheists and the Christians, observing Jews, Muslims, neo-pagans and other believers dull-witted enough to waste their lives arguing with them. Neither side wants to actually investigate Hitler's or Einstein's beliefs. The movement atheists/New Atheists are firmly convinced that Hitler was a Catholic and Einstein was an atheist, the others are firmly convinced that Hitler was an atheist and Einstein a theist or deist, no one's mind is open even a tiny crack in either side, they just want to score rhetorical points against each other, in exchanges with all of the subtlety of the opening of the Itchy & Scratchy Show. Furthermore, each side is firmly convinced that the other is stupid -- they might actually be right about that, for once -- and further than that, they very often immediately assume that anyone who has anything negative to say about anything they've said is on the opposite side of the theistic question -- if you criticize an atheist you must believe God exists, if you criticize a theist you must be an atheist. And this appallingly simplistic mindset is unfortunately displayed not just in
These morons are why many atheists have started to refuse to call themselves atheists.
Just a few years ago, when I first stumbled over atheists groups, I had such high hopes. I assumed that atheists generally would be pretty bright.
And I might have been right about that. But you don't have to be too bright to be appalled by people who verbally abuse billions of Muslims as if they were all violent atavistic extremists and all Catholics as if they favored the sexual abuse of children, who cheer at videos of books being burned and/or soiled with human waste, and who do the Itchy & Scratchy with religious morons all the livelong cousinbumpin day. I have a feeling that maybe most of the truly bright atheists are appalled by Dawkins' so-called Brights and their ilk much more quickly than I was. In any case, the more I see of movement atheists/New Atheists, the more I like religion.
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